Mapping Sustainability

Gains from GSSD Mapping

Mapping Sustainability is useful in several ways.

One - It is a ‘baseline’ of internally consistent ideas about the nature of ‘sustainability’ as a knowledge subject (i.e. topic). The ‘science’ of sustainability is at an early stage of development. This ‘baseline’ captures current understandings of dimensions and domains at this point in time.

Two - The ontology or the overall multidimensional system shows the complex nature of the issues, their various interconnections, and reduces undue simplification.

Three - Conceived and written in English, the terms used throughout Mapping Sustainability are commonly understood, even when the subject itself can be interpreted differently by different communities of knowledge, policy, or practice.

Four - When Mapping Sustainability is rendered in another language. However, in Arabic and in Chinese, for example, the ‘sustainable development’ glossary is not as fully developed as in English. We can formulate the correspondence for the terms in question. The result is as reliable a multilingual rendering of ideas as currently possible.

Five - The ontology generated by Mapping Sustainability (and the companion glossary of explanations and definitions) is also an indexing system for the knowledge base and helps to categorize and to generate a knowledge system consisting of information about the Internet-materials characterized.

Six - The knowledge base is an integral part of GSSD. It is reviewed and updated on a regular basis.

Seven - Mapping Sustainability provids key guidelines for the architecture and the operations of the foundations GSSD.

Eight - The ontology provids of ‘topic outlines’ for educational and research purposes, an indexing system, sustainability, and a mechanism to help track evolving knowledge over time.

Nine - The knowledge content of GSSD -- that is organized according to the mapping ontology -- is the framework for connecting knowledge of users, providers, and brokers of content on sustainable development.

Ten - Mapping Sustainability is the knowledge platform for the provision of local content generated around the world and made available to the international community. This knowledge represents ‘voices’ other than those of the advanced industrial countries.